Flu season hits hard

Hospitalizations surge in 2013

9:04 PM,
Jan. 15, 2013

Written by

Kevin Lu
| Stevens Point Journal Media

The current flu season in Wisconsin is the earliest to hit in a decade and there already has been three times the number of hospitalizations than last season.

Since October, there have been 1,360 cases of flu leading to hospitalization. In the entire 2011-12 flu season, there were 389 hospitalizations, said Terri Dums, the infections prevention and control manager at Ministry Saint Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield.

"This year in our area, and much of the state, is working up to be a lot worse than previous years," said Dums, who has been working at Saint Joseph's since 1997. "In my perspective, ...